Thayne Madrid

Pilgrimage

2009-07-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

Pilgrimages have been going on for a long time in the Western World, ever since, what’s her name, Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine set the style in AD 330. Later a nice nun named, Ethrea wrote a diary of her pilgrimage in the fourth century and described a system of guides, guidebooks and guesthouses for pilgrims. Pilgrims were also advised to travel in groups with armed escorts. It was hazardous business being a pilgrim then. By the thirteenth century they were considered penances for wrong doing, or an occasion to visit a holy shrine for fun and frolic or a serious life long profession. Pilgrimages also were an opportunity to make money.

In the Middle Ages, amidst the left-overs of The Holy Roman Empire, known as the feudal period, the average pilgrim was a common sight on the road.

Then a guy named Urban II, the Pope of the Catholic Church, got the idea of turning pilgrimages into Christian Military Expeditions called Crusades, which had very little to do with Christianity and a lot to do with economy. Closer to the past ‘reality’ of Christianity and Peter’s interpretation of his apprenticeship with Jesus of Jerusalem, was Basil of Caesarea (c. 330-379) during his ascetic phase in 356 in search of philosophical exemplers.ie., seeking answers to life now, not here after, now after or the eternally after. Just like the Greeks beginning in the 6th century BC.

But Urb, baby, had the knack of turning a Biblical messenger of peace and symbol of sacrifice, a Dove and a Lamb, into a Hawk and a Soldier of Christ. Amen into murder and mayhem. How did he do it? Urban II changed the ‘cause’. Now causation and causes are not covered in the Pilgrim’s Handbook, but inevitably every pilgrim runs or walks or stumbles onto them.

These particular pilgrimages or crusades was rule number 9, put your affairs in order in case you don’t come back. Soldiers of Christ either didn’t come back or if they did they often found everything that they had left behind gone or confiscated. The other change was that they didn’t come back soldiers but converted pilgrims.

Now, I could relate this period to you quoted from ten or twenty scholarly secondary sources but I would prefer to give you my first hand experience of the Knights of the Cross form the 11th to 12th centuries in an allegory.

As I recall, it hurt. I was pretty uncomfortable encased in metal and in pain for several hundred years. I was later reminded of Urban II’s Crusades during the Vietnamese Crusade. Same feeling and the same out come, costing a lot of human lives and damage, like my first Vietnamese girlfriend.

I was aquatinted with Pope Urban the Second, a second rate intellect in an age of first rate thinkers. He was a good salesman. He was fat. A bit jowly with reddish cheeks and an alcoholic addicted to the bottom line of the Church’s coffers. He had these cliche’, shrew looking, little un-piggy eyes and a real hunger.

Some people thought he was a real visionary, but he masturbated a lot when he didn’t have an alterboy at hand. Sacra-religious stuff, but the Church was pretty decadent in 1075. Urban II launched the first Crusade in a public speech at the Council of Clairmont, France, nine days after my 19th birthday on November 27th, with the slogan, ‘`Deus vult!’, ( God wills it!) Good copy. Hard to argue with and definitely a call to action if you were a Christian and had money problems. Imagine all that loot just waiting to be liberated in the East.

I also new Peter, The Hermit. He wasn’t a hermit at all, he rode all over the place recruiting peasants and was just another guy without a purpose in life until Urban fired him up along with Walter, the penniless. Walter wasn’t penniless either, both guys were pretty good sinners and needed money. Urban promised to wipe their ecclesiastical records clean and a fat bonus if they led the first lot of idiots to their slaughter. Which they did like good Christians and bagged a few Jews along the way until their karma, which they never heard of, caught up with them in Anatolia and the good Muslims delivered Islamic justice on the spot. No one returned. The good news was that there were no pilgrims amongst them, hims or hers, because every good pilgrim knows rule number eight. ‘ Always travel alone or with other pilgrims.’

By the third Crusade, 1188-92, Sultan Saladin had a monopoly on Palestine, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. Richard I of England got the historical glory, Frederick I drowned in Cilicia, only Acre was captured, Philip returned to France and Richard took a few more hills. After the Children’s Crusade, and by the eighth crusade in 1270, it was getting more and more unprofitable to Crusade, so the old notion of peace returned.

Where did I come in? I never really left for long at any one time for over five hundred years. I kept getting called back. Blame my karmic resume’. In fact I really haven’t had a good vacation from this dimension since I screwed with Amenhotep III’s wife, Neph, and started the whole One god RA business in Egypt. I’m still spirit non grata in northern Africa and persona non grata in Mexico, Germany and Singapore. I think its time to go back to China where this all started.

My problem is girls. Particularly Eastern girls. It still is and I don’t mean New York or Chelsea. It started in China. So did this handbook. I have contributed to several under different names, times and titles, The Tao Teh Ching, Bhagavadgita, I Ching, The Bible, Teachings of Buddha, Book of the Dead and a few cave painting texts. It’s a habitual thing. I had nothing to do with the Koran, that was an independents’ work.

The cock calls, the Hens come and I get in trouble for centuries, even millennia. During the Crusades I was working off a little Karmic penance for about five hundred years with a few coffee breaks in Japan, the British Colonies in The Americas, and in SE Asia. I’m always involved in the same messy warring business, only the weapons change , swords to microchips.

Anyway, on the third Crusade in 1188, I met up with a fellow future pilgrim named Saladin. We shared the same sword occupation occupying other peoples’ occupancy. This time we were on opposite sides both occupying Miss Fahtiah’s territory which was sacred ground and breaking the Pilgrim’s Handbook’s tenth rule, ‘ Practice safe sex.’

Fahtiah ben Amad was a Northern Yemenese woman of exceptional sexual talents and appetites. Our meeting was an accident of double booking, actually triple, because Fahtiah was in her bedchamber making it with a woman named Lylla, and Saladin and I were waiting it out together sitting on silk cushions in Fahtiah’s waiting room. The waiting room was decorated in the latest Baghdad post-neo Damascus Decor with abstract florals and too many colors. I couldn’t miss he was a Muslim and my red cross on my tunic was a dead give away. I said, Asalam Alechem and he replied, Pax be on to you.

A good opening, normally we’d be hacking away at each other, but we were on Fahtiah’s sacred grounds and to start fighting would result in losing Fahtiah’s favors, which were worth a thousand and one nights.

We talked shop and the art of swordsmanship. One of Fahtiah’s slaves served us coffee and we exchanged our personal reason for being addicted to Fahtiah. Saladin turned out to be a very chivalrous gentleman and even had sent a horse out to Richard when his was shot from under him by a Saracen arrow during last week’s battle which Saladin had lost inspite of overwhelming numbers to Richard’s tactics. Eventually we both came to the agreement that this present business interfered with enjoying life and not to do each other in on the battlefield until we were the only ones left and we would negotiate a peace that would allow the pilgrims to come back and visit Jerusalem. After all, it was really the Ottoman Turks who started this shit in the first place by molesting honest pilgrims.

The Crusades were primarily motivated by greed and economics anyway and the Turk Toughs roughing up a few pilgrims were a good excuse. A familiar story. Regardless of the currency, barter, geographic and human capital some closet King always wants to get more and rule the world. An impossible notion, but ignorance thrives on ignorance, and idiots keep on trying to own patches of earth and the people that live there. The Internet would change all that in a thousand years. But then, as now, countries are currencies in men’s minds. They don’t exist except for force of arms, inspite of all the maps, boundaries, ideas and ideologies that have been created to delude the average and exceptional in serving their systems, causes, and laying down their lives for someone’s collective delusion over the illusion of the world and gain. Few wars are really about good versus evil.

That’s why I was rather less than enthusiastic about wearing chainmesh and armour which totaled over a third of my body weight and trying to stay alive in Pope Innocents recent war on the infidels. The relevance of all this to the pilgrim is avoid someone else’s causes, even your own.

Relevance is what pilgrimages are all about.

The Pilgrims Handbook

2009-05-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

A Pilgrim’s Book

Foreword

One sunny Sunday in Spring I stumbled across a path in a Park Forest that someone had traveled before. There was a directional sign to my left. It said, ‘This path leads to the truth. There was another sign on my right pointing in the opposite direction. It said the same thing.

In the middle of the path was a well-worn book lying on the ground as if someone had simply stopped and dropped it. Directly in front of me, on the other side of the path, someone had proceeded straight ahead without looking right or left and had torn through the thicket that barred access to the forest beyond like a living fence. There was a hole with bits of torn clothing hanging on some of the thorns from the struggle to get through.

Curious, I thought, and I bent over and picked up the book. It was bound in brown leather with gold leaf lettering. The book was simply entitled, ‘The Pilgrim’s Handbook.”

There were convenient flat-topped rocks suitable for sitting on under both of the directional signs and I went over to the one on the left, sat down and opened the book. The title page bore the same inscription as the cover in Times Roman Text. The next page was the introduction and to my surprise read exactly as I had just experienced, describing everything in detail, with the exception for the following quote translated from Sanskrit and attributed to the Buddha. It read,

‘All that we experience, the world as well as the self, is created by thought.’

Curiouser and curiouser, I said aloud and I continued to read.

Chapter One

What Is A Pilgrim?

A pilgrim is not a FIT (Frequent International Traveler), a Tourist, Terrorist or an SAHACT (Stay At Home Armchair Traveler. Cyber Surfers will be discussed at a later site.) A pilgrim is a voyager with a missive waiting in the wings.

All make a journey, have a destination, more or less, and have an objective or mission: Business, Sightseeing or seeing sites.

So what is the difference? Itinerary? Travel Package? (3 days, two nights or 14 days, 13 countries, Transfers included or www. @internet.com) Mission? Vision? or Orientation?.

The difference is mindfulness and of course the rules;

Mindfulness is sort of a Buddhist, ‘Watch your Breath.’ Bad Breath interferes with intimacy.

The rules:

Rule number one, ‘Don’t leave home without it (mindfulness).’ Take a bar of soap and a towel too.

Rule number two, ‘Don’t make plans.’ The map is not the territory.

Rule number three, ‘Forget everything and remember all that happens is a lesson.’

Rule number four, ‘Be involved, but stay detached.’ Everything is constantly changing.

Rule number five, ‘ Take nothing that is not given and don’t give money to the poor, needy, disabled, hungry, homeless or others who are living out their own karma. You can give food, shelter, clothing, medicine or listen.

Rule number six, ‘Don’t forget you are on a pilgrimage. It is what you learn getting there that counts not the destination or where you may be mentally or physically in the present.

Rule number seven, ‘Keep a Pilgrim’s Diary. Memory is fickle and someday someone else may need what you learned, even you.

Rule number eight. Travel light. No unnecessary baggage allowed. Carry a Swiss Army knife with only enough functions that are useful, and be careful. You will be a stranger in strangelands. Captain Cook forgot and was eaten for dinner.

Rule number nine, ‘Put all your affairs in order in case you don’t come back and travel alone or only with other pilgrims.’

Rule number ten, ‘Practice safe sex. We are not only talking about condoms, but love without attachment.’

.
I had started out for a Sunday afternoon walk in downtown Portland, Oregon and decided to go up to The Rose Garden in Washington Park in the hills. In the park I had taken what I thought would be a shortcut through the Pine Trees that surrounded the park and here I was at a footpath T-junction reading an odd book I’d found on the path. (Insert Books Essay)

I looked up from the handbook and to my unsurprise there was no T-junction. Just one single pathway hedged in on both sides by thick brambles. I experienced a moment of orientation. Everything was rationally solid, and my focus of attention seemed under control.

Chapter Two
How to Make a Pilgrimage.

Don’t Panic. You are exactly where you should be at all times. Use your mind or your Swiss Army knife if necessary. Take three deep breaths. It helps to prepare the body and mind for change. Even if you are in the jaws of danger, take the time under control and look around you. What do you see? Are you certain? Certainty, like birth, is a continuation of the pilgrimage, just like breathing.

It helps to keep a diary and make lists. Note everything down in writing and move in any direction or just be still. Everything is going to change either way, even your mind. Stay mindful. Mindfulness is simply regarding everything internally. Paying attention to what you are paying attention to. Where the attention goes, your energy flows.

Don’t expect help along the way. It usually comes when you are ready for it. Also, remember there are no travel agents for pilgrims.

Practice a few pilgrimages to get the feel of it. Go to the market. Take three days. Or go to the airport if you don’t live in India and take a plane to Bombay, then Madras, then a bus or taxi to Puttaparthy to watch Sai Baba’s hair grow.

To discover past lives, a trip around the world is inspirational. Take your time.

Go find a Chinese girl wearing glasses talking on the telephone with one finger in her ear and listen. You’ll learn a lot about body noise.

Get a green card in Singapore. This will of course involve getting a job in a foreign country with a two-year employment contract. You will learn a lot of nonsense about business and bureaucracy.

The biggest learning benefit is that you will have to supply the Singapore Government with a complete life history from birth to the present. A perfect opportunity to write your own biography.

A trip to Athens, Cairo, Rome, Jerusalem, Morocco, Stonehenge, The Pyramids in Mexico and Egypt, New Jersey, Bali, Beijing, Sarawak, and Bangkok on alternate weekends is good practice.

Avoid London, Afghanistan, Central Africa, Dresden, Oslo, New York, Moscow, Karachi, Jakarta, Rio, Atlanta, and Belfast until you’ve been on the road for at least six years.

Tokyo for 36 months is okay, even for beginners. To get more out of your visit, ten years is the Japanese minimum.

If you have any questions about Mankind go visit Auschwitz, Mecca and Hanoi before visiting Washington DC, then take a vacation to the Brazilian Rain Forests.

If you are just seeking an escape it’s an easy exercise. Just do it.

‘Just Do It?’

I had half a mind to just put the book down and be on my way. But which way? I looked up and down the pathway. I could not find where I had entered.

The Handbook said I could go in any direction or stay still. Everything would change no matter what direction I went or none at all. Well, since I came up hill, I should go down hill. But here the pathway was perfectly flat in either direction as far as I could see. It was still early afternoon, so I decided to read some more. I turned the page,

Chapter Three
The Pilgrimage.

The simple truth is that without the laughter of magic and mystery, the power of imagination and the faith in a universe that is exactly as it should be, we cry, moan, suffer, despair, try to escape through drugs, alcohol, distractions and yet the truth never changes.

The pilgrim takes another path and seeks the truth. He seeks out distant shrines in far and sundry lands only to find that what he sought and seeks was inside and not outside. In other words insights that are to be had as fickle as the undisciplined attention of the mind lying upon the cool surface of insignificant events as well as the deepest intellectual intents. In short an inside shot at an outsized idea. Take it anyway you please, because we all do, take things as we please. In the matter of the senses we are all thieves. Stealing from our sensibility of ourselves. Seldom giving the essence a chance to be sniffed at like strange dogs meeting, curious about smelling someone like ourselves. Always relying too much on one sense, which dulls the others. Inside it is another matter in the darkness. There is a natural light unlike any sunrise, the surprise of insight into existence.

It’s now the end of the second millennia and the beginning of the 3rd of the Christian era. However, for Civilization, in China, Africa, India, Egypt and the Euphrates Valley, it’s just another thousand years again. So when is it really?

Speculation doesn’t count. It’s not a number. It’s like the Milky Way, a little cloudy. A fine universal mist with you a part of it. A little like string theory versus particle theory. The difference between one and zero. Just like the invention of languages, differences, and descriptions. Illusions of illusions in a mirror.

Do you sincerely want to succeed in living? Then take a look at the illusion of the real aborigine in the mirror. The most recent version at this point in time of some bone-breaking ancestor who wiped out every other hominid except monkeys and apes. How did they escape? By taking to the trees I imagine.

Most animals don’t kill their own kind without a good reason, like defense, survival, or rabies. So what got into us? We kill over love, territory, money, ideas, and gods. Sometimes we kill just for sport. What are sports? Exercises in aggression? Like to fight? Like to win. Like watching people practicing their competitive skills? Do you get excited over watching people cooperate in battling one another, overcoming obstacles, and scaling new heights? Do you like horror stories, scaring yourself in amusement parks safely, speed and gambling? Do you like entertainment? Then don’t read this. Stop now before you start laughing like the fat lady in the Circus.

Or read a good advertisement.

Remember this is a hand-book. You know, hands on first, and then the entertainment. Now, take a deep breath. Which way does it go? Keep watching. Pay attention to it. Where does your breath first touch your body? Is it the tip of your nose? Keep watching until you find it.

Keep watching. Look at the tip of your nose. The answer will come to you, sooner or later, automatically.

Pilgrimages have been going on for a long time in the Western World, ever since, what’s her name, Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine set the style in AD 330. Later a nice nun named, Ethrea wrote a diary of her pilgrimage in the fourth century and described a system of guides, guidebooks and guesthouses for pilgrims. Pilgrims were also advised to travel in groups with armed escorts. It was hazardous business being a pilgrim then. By the thirteenth century they were considered penances for wrongdoing, or an occasion to visit a holy shrine for fun and frolic or a serious life long profession. Pilgrimages also were an opportunity to make money.

In the Middle Ages, amidst the leftovers of The Holy Roman Empire, known as the feudal period, the average pilgrim was a common sight on the road.

Then a guy named Urban II, the Pope of the Catholic Church, got the idea of turning pilgrimages into Christian Military Expeditions called Crusades, which had very little to do with Christianity and a lot to do with economy. Closer to the past ‘reality’ of Christianity and Peter’s interpretation of his apprenticeship with Jesus of Jerusalem, was Basil of Caesarea (c. 330-379) during his ascetic phase in 356 in search of philosophical exemplers.ie. seeking answers to life now, not here after, now after or the eternally after. Just like the Greeks beginning in the 6th century BC.

But Urb, baby, had the knack of turning a Biblical messenger of peace and symbol of sacrifice, a Dove and a Lamb, into a Hawk and a Soldier of Christ. Amen into murder and mayhem. How did he do it? Urban II changed the ‘cause’. Now causation and causes are not covered in the Pilgrim’s Handbook, but inevitably every pilgrim runs or walks or stumbles onto them. Like Islam, you can’t avoid them.

These particular pilgrimages or crusades were rule number 9, put your affairs in order in case you don’t come back. Soldiers of Christ either didn’t come back or if they did they often found everything that they had left behind gone or confiscated. The other change was that they didn’t come back soldiers but converted pilgrims.

Now, I could relate this period to you quoted from ten or twenty scholarly secondary sources but I would prefer to give you my first hand experience of the Knights of the Cross from the 11th to 12th centuries in an allegory.

As I recall, it hurt. I was pretty uncomfortable encased in metal and in pain for several hundred years. I was later reminded of Urban II’s Crusades during the Vietnamese Crusade. Same feeling and the same out come, costing a lot of human lives and damage, like my first Vietnamese girlfriend.

I was aquatinted with Pope Urban the Second, a second rate intellect in an age of first-rate thinkers. He was a good salesman. He was fat. A bit jowly with reddish cheeks and an alcoholic addicted to the bottom line of the Church’s coffers. He had these cliche’, shrew looking, little un-piggy eyes and a real hunger.

Some people thought he was a real visionary, but he masturbated a lot when he didn’t have an alterboy at hand. Sacra-religious stuff, but the Church was pretty decadent in 1075. Urban II launched the first Crusade in a public speech at the Council of Clairmont, France, nine days after my 19th birthday on November 27th, with the slogan, ‘`Deus vult!’ (God wills it!) Good copy. Hard to argue with and definitely a call to action if you were a Christian and had money problems. Imagine all that loot just waiting to be liberated in the East.

I also new Peter, The Hermit. He wasn’t a hermit at all; he rode all over the place-recruiting peasants and was just another guy without a purpose in life until Urban fired him up along with Walter, the penniless. Walter wasn’t penniless either, both guys were pretty good sinners and needed money. Urban promised to wipe their ecclesiastical records clean and a fat bonus if they led the first lot of idiots to their slaughter. Which they did like good Christians and bagged a few Jews along the way until their karma, which they never heard of, caught up with them in Anatolia and the good Muslims delivered Islamic justice on the spot. No one returned. The good news was that there were no pilgrims amongst them, hims or hers, because every good pilgrim knows rule number eight. ‘Always travel alone or with other pilgrims.’

By the third Crusade, 1188-92, Sultan Saladin had a monopoly on Palestine, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. Richard I of England got the historical glory, Frederick I drowned in Cilicia, only Acre was captured, Philip returned to France and Richard took a few more hills. After the Children’s Crusade, and by the eighth crusade in 1270, it was getting more and more unprofitable to Crusade, so the old notion of peace returned.

Where did I come in? I never really left for long at any one time for over five hundred years. I kept getting called back. Blame my karmic resume’. In fact I really haven’t had a good vacation from this dimension since I screwed with Amenhotep III’s wife, Neph, and started the whole One god RA business in Egypt. I’m still spirit non grata in northern Africa and persona non grata in Mexico, Germany and Singapore. I think its time to go back to China where this all started.

My problem is girls. Particularly Eastern girls. It still is and I don’t mean New York or Chelsea. It started in China. So did this handbook. I have contributed to several under different names, times and titles, The Tao Teh Ching, Bhagavadgita, I Ching, The Bible, Teachings of Buddha, Book of the Dead and a few cave painting texts. It’s a habitual thing. I had nothing to do with the Koran that was an independents’ work.

The cock calls, the Hens come and I get in trouble for centuries, even millennia. During the Crusades I was working off a little Karmic penance for about five hundred years with a few coffee breaks in Japan, the British Colonies in The Americas, and in SE Asia. I’m always involved in the same messy warring business, only the weapons change swords to microchips.

Anyway, on the third Crusade in 1188, I met up with a fellow future pilgrim named Saladin. We shared the same sword occupation occupying other peoples’ occupancy. This time we were on opposite sides both occupying Miss Fahtiah’s territory which was sacred ground and breaking the Pilgrim’s Handbook’s tenth rule, ‘Practice safe sex.’

Fahtiah ben Amad was a Northern Yemenese woman of exceptional sexual talents and appetites. Our meeting was an accident of double booking, actually triple, because Fahtiah was in her bedchamber making it with a woman named Lylla, and Saladin and I were waiting it out together sitting on silk cushions in Fahtiah’s waiting room. The waiting room was decorated in the latest Baghdad post-neo Damascus Decor with abstract florals and too many colors. I couldn’t miss he was a Muslim and my red cross on my tunic was a dead give away. I said, Asalam Alechem and he replied, Pax be on to you.

A good opening, normally we’d be hacking away at each other, but we were on Fahtiah’s sacred grounds and to start fighting would result in losing Fahtiah’s favors, which were worth a thousand and one nights.

We talked shop and the art of swordsmanship. One of Fahtiah’s slaves served us coffee and we exchanged our personal reason for being addicted to Fahtiah. Saladin turned out to be a very chivalrous gentleman and even had sent a horse out to Richard when his was shot from under him by a Saracen arrow during last week’s battle which Saladin had lost inspite of overwhelming numbers to Richard’s tactics. Eventually we both came to the agreement that this present business interfered with enjoying life and not to do each other in on the battlefield until we were the only ones left and we would negotiate a peace that would allow the pilgrims to come back and visit Jerusalem. After all, it was really the Ottoman Turks who started this shit in the first place by molesting honest pilgrims.

The Crusades were primarily motivated by greed and economics anyway and the Turk Toughs roughing up a few pilgrims were a good excuse. A familiar story. Regardless of the currency, barter, geographic and human capital some closet King always wants to get more and rule the world. An impossible notion, but ignorance thrives on ignorance, and idiots keep on trying to own patches of earth and the people that live there. The Internet would change all that in a thousand years. But then, as now, countries are currencies in men’s minds. They don’t exist except for force of arms, inspite of all the maps, boundaries, ideas and ideologies that have been created to delude the average and exceptional in serving their systems, causes, and laying down their lives for someone’s collective delusion over the illusion of the world and gain. Few wars are really about good versus evil.

That’s why I was rather less than enthusiastic about wearing chainmesh and armour which totaled over a third of my body weight and trying to stay alive in Pope Innocent’s recent war on the infidels. The relevance of all this to the pilgrim is avoid someone else’s causes, even your own.

Relevance is what pilgrimages are all about.

Chapter Four
The Karma Pilgrimage

I woke up with a Sake hangover from playing around all night in the floating city in Osaka, Japan. Got home at sunrise, puked and passed out in the genkan (entry) twice, and made it to the futon. Got kicked out by my wife unto the Tatami mat and some one outside was yelling the Barbarians were coming!

I staggered over to my sword stand and grabbed my Katana and Tanto, stuffed them into my waistband, brushed back my hair and entered the street. Everyone was rushing down to the Harbor and I could see the topsails of the masts of the barbarian ship over the green tiled rooftops down the hill.

I thought, here we go again and I recalled something about dreaming of a Red Cross and pair of amazingly white pair of teats. I was caught up in the rush and was soon standing on the beach watching a small skiff flying a flag of red, white and blue Stars and Stripes. Deja vu, I had seen this before.

I woke up again with a pounding headache from drinking to much ale at the Crown Tavern in Boston, riding in a carriage at 5 AM in the morning, on my way to Morningside Knoll for a duel with a gentleman in a white powdered wig and red uniform whose name I didn’t remember or the woman I had wagged off his lap last night. A bunch of us were celebrating the afternoon’s Tea Party in the harbor. The choice of weapons was mine, the sword. Apres vous, this was getting familiar.

Drunk. Absolutely, undramatically drunk upon arrival at Madras, India at three in the morning.

The first step of this sacred pilgrimage began with a stagger. Off the plane, Ramp Tunnel, Immigration, no baggage, exit, all a blur. Dense crowd cloud of brown faces with white smiles and small welcome signs from hotels, companies, drivers, names. Somewhere out there is a driver destined to take this pilgrim to a nice clean, modern Sheraton Hotel with all the privileges of executive class travel.

I see a sign, Mr. Madras written underneath the Sheraton Logo. Close enough, but not my name. Go for it. Nod. Nod. Goes my drunken head. Blank space. Wake up in Taxi. Going to Shangri-La. Salvation at the end of the flight.

And I remember, flight from Singapore and Sheena which is the reason, with the best of intentions, that I started on this pilgrimage to see the Avatar Sai Baba, god on earth, an Indian Guru with an African natural hair do.

I’m drunk because of a two day delay at Changi Airport on Air India in First Class with free drinks and a depressive last call to my almost Muslim ex-fourth and fifth wife until the divorce (I married her twice) whom I should not have called from the airport before boarding.

‘Hello?’ A deep southern baritone voice answered the phone. I knew whom it was, the black drummer from the band playing at Cesar’s Disco in Orchard Towers off Orchard Road. I paused; I knew she was seeing him. Sudden doubt, ask for Sheena or hang up?
‘Is Sheena there?’
‘You bet she is Bro.’ The sound of phone clunking down on glass table. Background noises, rock music, footsteps approaching the telephone.
‘Hello?’
‘Sheena?’
‘Yes.’ Oh, it’s boring you again intonation.
‘Did you get the money I transferred to your account?’
‘I didn’t check.’ A sudden realization on her part that I called her by her nightclub, escort, working girl name instead of her real name, Fahtiah.
‘What did you call me?’
‘Sheena.’
‘Oh.’ You really are stupid when it comes to me aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know it’s` not healthy. Thank u for the money. Where are you?’
‘At the Airport, I’m going to India.’
‘Business?’
‘No, I’m going to see a guru by the name of Sai Baba. I’ll be back next week.’
‘Well, have a good trip.’ Dismissal.
‘Yeah, Good-bye.’ I hung up the phone and was instantly depressed. I was still addicted.

I woke up still half drunk from drinking too much on flight TG 386 from Saigon to Bangkok with the stewardess announcing that we’re landing in fifteen minutes please put your seats upright and fasten your seat belts. I was on a mission to rescue the elf, my eighteen-year-old sister-in-law from the Thai national decease. Prostitution.

Chapter Five
The Rescue Pilgrimage

Rescuing can either be an art or a bad habit. And every pilgrimage has its day. Like the other day. 13:30 flight to Bangkok from Singapore on Thai Airlines. Return same day at 19:30.

The Mission: Rescue 18 year old sister-in-law from National Disease. Prostitution. Dep Leopard in my ears compliments of Sony. Two golden Buddha's hanging around my neck for protection compliments of my wife. Breitling , 'Navitimer,' on my wrist. Black Label in my right hand compliments Thai Airlines. Change hands so I can write. This is the stuff reality is made of, as well as, a plastic American Express Gold Card to carry me on the path of righteousness. So let's talk about right thoughts and left actions. Like In-flight Sales. Beats direct mail when you're belted into the catalogue.

A man once said there is only one place to go, but many ways to get there. This is one. "Hey, Buddy, can you lend me a dollar?"

Through the turbulent air, the essence of atmosphere, to Bangkok for the pick-up of sister-in-law, then the Singapore drop. "Just a wee one, please."

I hate non-smoking flights. All flights are none smoking today.

There's a creation born every second. Sixty seconds after first place. Past times have considerably shortened life-span. At least this one having gone past Five-zero. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about. ONE.

It's this one thing that has me going today. This one tiny thing. It's called compassion. Just in case we want no misunderstanding what this one's all about. Like a chain attached to something out there in the mist of humanity. Quanta stuff.

It all comes down to, if I were you and you were me. How would you feel? If you know, you've already got it. Like a chronic flu. Its passed between me and you. Just sneeze or yawn. Double up in pain. We'll both get the message. One. That goes for every-body and mind too..

Now. Responding to this one two one is where the craziness comes in. Like a pilgrimage. You read it in middle English if you were lucky. Sanskrit if you weren't. The language gives you your perspective. Vision without seeing is the reality of languages that are basically blind. Confuse the mind. And the mind passes it along to the body. The body passes it back again. And you've got a ping-pong reality. The double sound of one ball and two paddles reacting over one table with two sides and one net in the middle. The irony is that the nature of the net is to catch and the object of the game is to avoid the net. So what's the purpose of the net? If the essence of the net is to catch; and the essence of the game is to deny the net catching the ball; and that in combination with not missing the ball with the paddle makes me a winner and you a loser; or you a winner and me a loser; and if the net does catch the ball its considered a foul; It makes you wonder about One doesn't it?

So what's wrong with being Thai in Thailand and right about being in Thailand and not being Thai? It all depends on your mission in life. If you're a pilgrim, ignorance is good. If you're an explorer, pioneer, or just a plain astronaught, it doesn't count. Add it up. Its still all one. But alot of people just haven't accepted the notion yet. So we've got a lot of human misery problems that for the most part are Baroque,ie unnecessary. So much for the common good. Now how about the uncommon good? Ever consider that that's maybe the way it really ought to be if it weren't for this thing called language getting in the way. Perhaps, even the best marriages are mute communications of fuller relationships. Whoops. There, I've let one go.

Relationships are more than words. Anyone could have said that. But two? That's compassion. Like Black Label Scotch and Breitling watches on flight SQ 66 to Bangkok. They just served my choice of prawns or duck. Some choice. No meal is a choice. We all have to eat. And menus restrict choice. So if we are what we chose , perhaps we should examine the menu. Better yet, don't choose from the menu, order off the menu. Make up your own meal.

The problem with menus is language and selection. I don't speak Latin. However have you ever seen, felt, heard, been given a relationship menu?

Excuse me, sir, what relationship with the Universe would you like today? Prawns or duck? You see what I mean. It's the same one thing all over again. One two One.

Would I lie to you? Sure, everyday! We all lie to each other. Simply because we don't know the truth. However, relationships don't lie. Why? Because relationships aren't descriptions or definitions. They are realities. Same difference. You know, One too One.

Don't forget one on one either. It's like this flight to Bangkok to retrieve my wife's sister from sure destitution or moral corruption. Singapore doesn't care. No Compassion. But I do. So does my friend Neil. He paid for the tickets. I'm the one who gave him the opportunity to care about something other than himself. Ah, now you've got it all. I'm the one, too. So are you if you've stayed with this mono-one-a-logue. One leads to action. That's real compassion. That's what one is all about.

Since its unlucky to stop on four. I'll finish on five. No jive. No Dive. No plunge. It's swimming in the one pool of life. Non life too. Or maybe there really is no distinction between one and One.

Take two steps back and stop at the airport holding lounge in Bangkok. Sai Baba puts in an appearance at 18:00 hrs in the form East Indian woman.

I had picked up the elfin sister-in-law. Gave Money and gifts to the family. Black Label to Papa. Blouses and B'day gifts for Ma. And the old man next door pulled an eel out the rice paddy pond and proudly displayed the menu on the wooden walk to the typical Thai house on stilts. The family gave me another Buddha. Old one. And my Buddha's were getting heavy. On the way to the airport I had this Karmic climax in the taxi which lasted until the Elf and I were through Thai Immigration and customs. We had ensconced ourselves in the usual airport plastic seats and when I looked up I saw her. An old lady friend from India. Another Baba experienced soul. She smiled brightly the one smile they all smile who know about the big One. Elf plugs into the walkman and disappears. Narantha and I discuss the usual avatar business and she gives me a picture of Sai Baba. We exchange a few lines of meditation on the subject of Over eating the menu. She asks to steal a few lines on relationships not lying and its time to go.

On SQ 67 determined for Singapore its a typical two of one situation. My wife is a two of one. She's pregnant. My sixteen year old son and to be born daughter will arrive at the same time in July. Set and mate in one.

The Ark and Noa had nothing on this pilgrimage. This is a rescue, remember? Two by two of each kind of one.The numbers increase every day until they become infinities. Up-there is having fun while we are scheduled for lift off in two minutes. That's double sixties where I come from. Not to mention our seat numbers are 32 A and B, and if I count correctly that is two 32's or 64 in seating numerology. The I Ching has 64 Hexagrams of change. Any connection? Unfortunately I can't understand the relationship of numbers. But I can understand the relationship of family. Almost anyone can. Basic familiar face in the airport stuff reminding us where we come from. Like Sai Baba saying, "Back to Back, its one world."

Add up all the numbers in the world and they would equal one. Ask any computer guy. The only alternative is zero. And that's nothing compared to one.

Let's see what Singapore immigration has to say. One more hurdle to come.

Three. Epilogue.

I love epilogues. They give perspective. A certain literary justification written after the facts of certain disaster that wasn't so certain. Thank goodness for uncertainty. Tidy. And pure illusion. The world is not a tidy place. Fastidiously swept clean of chaos by an inspired handmaid hiding ever ready in the closet like a faithful battery ready to charge up the process all over again. Remember entropy. It gets cold out there sometimes. But then that is the relationship of three's. You know. The father, son and holy Indian cow.

Well, someone at Immigration spots soiled sister-in-law. Calls in Superior judgment because she had been prohibited from entering Singapore for being from a 3rd world country and belonging to another Race running last on the current Chinese social order of societies' winner circles. Except this time the brown skin girl facing the yellow ( lighter brown ) face was facing a white man ( more pink ) and forgive him a green card holder of the first pilgrimage.

It was all over in a matter of minutes. She got a 14 day visa entry stamp. Home free. That's freedom where I was born. The USA in 1776. Not today. Which added up to three of us at home, then four, then five. You know how numbers go. One after one.

One of these being the insight of permeability. Osmosis of the intellect. Direct sensations that you can take any way that you please. Because we all do. Take things and ideas as we please. In that sense we are all thieves. Stealing from life our sensibility of ourselves. Seldom giving the essence a chance to be sniffed like strange brandies. Curious about living?

In other words, smelling ourselves and not relying too much on vision. Or language. It is all inside anyway. Another mater. Relying too much on vision and language dulls the other senses. In the darkness there is an amazing light unlike any other outside. In short. Insight.

Like problems. You can take them or not take them. Leave them behind. Just get up and walk away. Turn your back on a problem and it becomes invisible. Take a few steps and it ceases to exist, Break into a proper run in the right direction and its certain you'll run into something else probably better than the problem you were entertaining. It's all entertainment for a pilgrim.Its one for all and all for one. And that's real.

Chapter Six
PILGRIMAGE NUMBER ONE

Man made a mistake. He started differentiating between me and them and us and animals and I and things. He separated himself.

Now if all of this is too abstract for you, or you don’t get the relevance,
pick up a rotten piece of fruit and squeeze. Like what you feel?

O.K., so I’m on my milky way to Thailand to tie up some loose ends.
Hmmm. Loose? Ends? Hmmm. I don’t think so. A certain pilgrimage is a foot. And I’m already in my 3rd step. Oh,oh! here we go again. Get my hands on my umbilical cord and cut. The third step of the pilgrimage that began at conception. Get the idea?

Try a wife, divorce and two children. That’s the connection. And one Vietnamese girl friend. Waaaa. Where’s that teat? Quick, get me to the next Rolling Stone whisky bar.

The flight is scheduled for nine o’clock. Take off. Landing BKK.
Ex-Wife and kids. Big hugs. Back to new house. Same shit. Next day.
worse. Same shit. Money this. Money That. No school for kids. House is polutted with people all over the floor .

I keep getting these messages from innerspace when I am dreaming. A symbolic language that never fails to elude my waking mind. Defies analysis. I don’t have a Rosetta Stone or a Dream Webster Dictionary. I’m illiterate to this particular visual speak. So why
send the message to a listener who doesn’t understand the language. Or am I the wrong receiver. Perhaps I am just listening in to someone else’s conversation. Fascinating as it is, what does it say. Stay tuned?

Tu-uned. Yes I am Tuned into Miss Tu’. It’s just like my dreams. I’m getting messages I don’t understand in a language that is foreign to me. Does anyone have a Tu’ dictionary? Does anyone have anyone’s dictionary? Or is it like interpreting a dream? Does anyone have my dictionary? Madam librarian may I have the T Dictionary? I think its under misunderstood.

You can see the difficulty in communication. It is right in back of you. You just have to learn how to turn around and read it out loud. Speaking in pictures. A thousand words per second. Say again, playback please. So Miss Tu’ and I just go round and round in fast forward and reverse trying to catch each other’s meaning. The meaning of meanings.

“Hello, Hello, is anyone out there?”

Maybe not.

Not that that is of concern to most people, but it has my attention. Attention, Please! Attention is the cement that binds us to together. Unbounded and alone we seek attention
in each other without understanding because we don’t speak the same language. Oh,Oh.

Knock, Knock, who’s there? Miss Tu’. To who? You or me? Getting the answers is what a pilgrimage is suppose to be about. Love and understanding.

Have you read any good ones lately? Can you read at all? Add up the question marks and you’ll get 42. Are there more? I think there is only one or two. Or none at all, Zen Zero.
I saw a sign the other day. It read, Bureau Veritas. That’s Bureau of Truth in French. My Vietnamese chauffeur told me it was a business. Hmmm, the business of truth. I wonder if I’m already employed. I have an employment pass. Past or present tense, I’m not sure.

I think Miss Tu’ and I work in the same department, but I’m not sure because I can’t understand what she is saying. Or is she saying nothing. I’m stopping using question marks since everything is questionable. Keep traveling.

She called me again last night. Just business, she said.

This one just keeps going. Another millennium. Remember the last one. Making sense of the Millenniums is like talking to another person. Sharing delusions about illusions. If all this doesn’t make sense, then its non-sense. Nonsense might be the most sensible common denominator amongst us all after all is said or read. Keep reading.

I don’t get paid for this. That’s what makes so valuable. You don’t pay for value. You give value. Its automatic intentional. Something we’re born with or without. It all depends on whether you use it or not. Is it useful. Up to you. Up to me. Up to Tu’.

Just business, she said. Did I understand her. Yes and No.

I’m getting into this habit, like a nun on the run. Running into what with every contact with the Earth. When we walk or run we only have one contact with earth at a time. When we stand still, we have two. Maybe Miss Tu’ and I should just stand still and look at one another. It may make more sense.

Sense and sensibility is what this pilgrimage was about.

Chapter Seven

God is having fun. Be respectful.

This is it. We've all experienced those moments when we've thought, 'This is it !' This reason It was or wasn't, actually both, was because it involved some object of desire. Now love without an object is It. It's safe sex.

It's also all in the Numbers. Like basic black reading back. For example I'm sitting at my drafting table, it’s a desk for artists. No computer.

And these numbers start to attract my attention. I'm on the 8th floor sitting behind the 4th drafting table. Number 1 from the back in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Building in Singapore. If I add up the numbers I've just listed it looks something like this. 8+4+1= 13, now add 1+3 and it equals 4. The office number is 08-7 which adds up to 13.
Add 1+3 again and you get 4. Add 4+4 and you get 8. I'm smoking Mild Seven cigarettes from Japan, so 7+8= 13 again. There are 20 cigarettes in the pack. The date is the 13th of the 5th month. Back to addition again and if we add up all the numbers ( 8+7+2+0+5) = 22 and 2+2= 4 again. Four in Japanese is Shi.It also means death. And my business just happens to be dying. Is there any relationship? The Four Horsemen of my Apocalypse.

You can find significance anywhere in anything if you look for it. Take the Genome as a model. Most often that is exactly what everyone does and they build a reality for themselves out of it. they say, this is it. So 'It' is pretty arbitrary.
What’s,'it'? That's just it. It isn't. You are it.

O.K. Pilgrim lets put everything aside so that there is nothing in front of you except this next pilgrimage.

It's 9393. In other numbers its September 3, 1993. You have some memories about that date and year. Or maybe you've lost that day in your life because you weren't keeping a Pilgrim’s diary. The reason I bring it up is that everyday is important. You don't just get through it. It gets through to you. Everyday is lesson and if you don't keep a diary you're going to forget a day in your life. Soon you'll forget whole weeks, even months, 10 years from now you could lose years. You don't actually lose them, you just won't remember consciously a whole lot of good stuff. A diary helps keep you mindful. A towel can dry you off. Safe sex keeps you in love with the Universe. A bar of soap can help wash away dirt and if you really care about other people you'll share what you have. It ads up to 6 +4+5 = 6 in the rules in the Pilgrim's Handbook.

The numbers or significance is really all about something called God.The question is; Is there a connection between good and God, like Good Will, or God will. Will what? Have fun. Does God have fun? And if he's having fun, why aren't we. God will. Is it in the numbers
like a heavenly abacus or in the significance we give the numbers.
Numbers help mark the moments you rather not forget. No matter how painful, pleasurable or fun. These feelings are the relationship between you and your world. I'm in it too. So count me in.

Existence counts only zeros. In English, we write I,N,G. Be-ing, Last-ing, become-ing. Inging has been going on a long time in languages. In fact as of today arbitrarily we've been ing-ing along for over 9999 years. We really need alot more 'hyphens' and 'ands' to help us remember what we are really talking about.

That's how my pilgrimage to India to see the Avatar Sai Baba got started. And ended three days later to the tune of Dick Tracy by Madonna. Make sense? No? Well, the upshot was being shot down by the Avatar with an enduring dirty glare. I got his attention and he got mine. And then punished me by leading to my next wife which made
five. Oh, 5!

Tomorrow is 0407 or the 4th of July. That’s 11 or 2. 1+1= 2. A+B=C.
Basic alphabet forms one to twenty-six. Add it up. Its one digit before 10.
Ohm.

Chapter Eight

The Nineteen Year Old Pilgrimage

I don’t know if keeping a 19-year old Vietnamese taxi-girl (Sex for Hire) qualifies as a pilgrimage or just folly that ends up as a pain instead of a pleasure. But what’s a man to do at 55? Stop counting? In numerology that’s 1+9=10 or 1+0=1 And 5+5=10 or 1+0=1 ultimately 1+1=2. Make any sense? To the two of us, yes. I get what I want and she gets what she wants. A Get Get situation. And I’m not referring to sex.

Does it get better or get worse? GET.GET. Get what?

It certainly is a long way away from Fahtiah’s couch in the 12th century. Or is it? Hmm. Maybe Saladin’s going to show up again.

The search for youth makes strange bed partners. Very similar to Ponce de Lyon looking for the Fountain of Youth. Folly. If you follow me you’re in trouble, because every pilgrimage is individual. Try following in another man’s footsteps and you’ll lose more than your way. You lose yourself. And that’s not a pilgrimage. Finding yourself is. So are past lives living in the present. But the pursuit of youth is definitely a questionable quest. Why would anyone want to stay young? FUN?

Young or Youthful. There’s a difference. She’s young. I’m youthful. That old man in the mirror is an illusion.

You can reject anything by refusing to believe in it. And everyone does a lot of rejecting everyday. So much so it’s difficult to believe in the “ real” in reality. The conclusion is a great many illusions of accumulated rejections and selective acceptances symbolized in words and images and translated by the body as feelings about what’s real. Is she really 19yrs old and am I really 55yrs old? Some people see it that way. But do we? Does she? Do I? We both get what we want. What’s more real than, GET.GET?So what is missing? Reality, of course. Not getting what you want out of life.

It’s all folly. Quite thought-less-than-mindful. 1+1= 11. Just the two of us getting what we want. But it’s a dis-honest relationship because we are both lying to each other and ourselves. So much for 19-years of life and I broke rule of practicing safe sex. So on to the next step of the pilgrimage for youth.

Can Brazil patent the biological diversity of its Rain Forests? Do countries really own exclusively their Natural Resources?

They act as if they do and sell to other countries what lies within their borders. Countries even claim the right to its people. Can anyone own another person? I believe its called Slavery, regardless of the rationale, ideology or political system. It seems to be based on the illusion that ethnic indigenous peoples living in certain areas own the territory that they occupy. And the ruling hierarchy owns the people. Does the territory own the people? Does the Earth own us? Or the Universe own its planets? What’s the folly of it all? Youth or Ownership? One is real and one is a belief. Unbelievable, when you get honest with reality. It’s very much like a relationship between a 55-year-old man with a 19-year-old girl. Do you own your own clone?

There’s another thing I have to tell you about young Vietnamese girls. They love to have their picture taken in various glamorous costumes and poses. They keep scrapbooks on themselves and their ideal illusion about themselves. The other day my little 19-yr old showed up with pictures of herself in full wedding costume. White gown and all the trimmings including red Roses.

She would make a beautiful Bride. Is that a message? Or an illusion she’s trying to create in order to ingratiate herself further into my illusion of her for more money? She's actually hired to care of the children in the evenings.

The numbers would indicate that we might all just be a program on some mysterious Hard Disk in an unknown computer. 0 or 1. A spiritual program. A friend of mine commented that he hoped it was readable only by the password owner.

Numbers. Like 2000 or Y2K. What’s it add up to? Two. And two is always trouble. 2+2= 4. In Japanese 4 is pronounced Shi and the sound Shi also means death in Japanese so the Japanese consider the number unlucky and never buy four of anything. Take the unlucky number 13 for instance, 1+3=4. Are some numbers really unlucky or mean trouble? I wonder if we will find the answer to that one at the end of the Pilgrimage. What are the odds? Evens? Count the number of question marks in this book and you’ll get a good idea. So what is the difference between infinity and forever. A Nuclear physicist commented to me the other day that he was counting infinities on a computer of the number atomic collisions within one square centimeter of space within a nuclear reactor. Counting infinities? It made me wonder if numbers were real. Or just more symbols for guesswork illusions. Maps of territories are not the territories.

We all carry several maps in our minds. Language maps, number maps, feeling maps, visual memory maps, value maps, Territory maps, city maps. What happens when a map is out of date? A relationship map for instance. Or what if a map is simply wrong, and it was drawn wrong in the first place. Since we all make maps shouldn’t somebody be teaching map making? Writing a guide. A handbook. User and used friendly.

Shall try by mapping out a relationship between a 19 year old Vietnamese girl and 55 year old expatriate American who has spent the last 25 years travelling around the world. How would it go? Let’s take a crack at it.

First of all you have to know where you are. Where are we in space, time and 12 other dimensions?

String Theory. Begin at the end and unravel the ball to the beginning or the end. Depends on how you view it. You could view it both ways. Two views of the same thing. The basic theory behind all this is simply this; everything has the potential be its exact opposite. 0 has the potential to become one and 1 has the potential to become Zero. Nothing has the potential to become something and something the potential to become nothing. What exists can also not exist. What does not exist has the potential to exist. In Chinese they describe it as Yin and Yang. Now this can have far reaching ramifications and implications if we put it into practice and do it.

Do what? Do miracles. Like changing water into wine and walking on water. We could eliminate industry for one thing. War, famine, hungers, strife and unnatural disasters. Illness and death. Territories, governments, and taxes.

We change difference for variety. Prejudice to judgement. Eliminate slavery and illusion. We could make unreal things real and establish a real reality. Interesting notion.

Learn the magical lesson that making the most of what you have turns it into something more.

Chapter Nine

Back In The USA

The return,"Let's go to a Thai restaurant."

Sashimi in Portland, Oregon, Thai Tum Yum Kong Soup with a Vietnamese girl on Saturday night, e-mail from Florida the day before, Washington Apples and Hawaiian Pineapple, Internet in the afternoon, Lost a tooth to the surgeon who turned out to be a Dental Student doing her first extraction. Starbucks Coffee all day long living on welfare like a millionlessaire, so who's minding the store? Gore Vidal or Stravinsky?

Back in the USA and seeing it as if for the first time after 20 years of living in SE Asia. Did I bring anything back? Did I leave anything behind? I didn't do the packing.

The tooth was capped in gold, a gold crown for a King of a tooth. I tied to hold on to it too long like a relationship that has gone bad, but you couldn't let go. And when you do, the damage is done. A hole in the Jaw, or your self esteem. A sunny day in autumnal October of leaves red and old. Falling like a golden tooth to the season's pliers and dropped like a leaf upon the grass in the front lawn. Thunk into the kidney dish, delivered up to you with loving hands wrapped in gauze inside a small vanilla envelope for you take home and wonder at the fifty years that that tooth had lived in your mouth grinding away at the essence of life to end up in the palm of your hand. The tooth was good; the jaw was bad like a relationship ending with the same sound, Thunk! Another piece of golden junk.

Cider and Cinnamon. Candied Apples and Cigarettes. Incense and candlelight. Turn the page tonight. They still give driving tests to drivers who have driven for forty years.

Let's talk about time capsules. Take one very 1000 years. It was my choice. I decided to ask The New /Old USA system entrap me. I am now self-enslaved in a Drug and Alcohol abuse program that is going to teach me something new for 4 nights a week for 5 weeks. Childcare? That's my problem. Do my children care that their Dad is there when they go to bed in strange house in a strange country with nothing but strangers around them? What did your mother tell you about strangers? Think about it. Does it really make sense? All I did was apply for a job and ask for a little assistance and here I am, a full-blown social system casualty. They are giving me the wonderful opportunity to change my life. I should be laughing. As if I needed more change of life at this time in my life. My real problem is repatriation and securing a steady income. But they don't know how to help me do that. They do know how to treat the people who live here and not where I come from for abusing alcohol and drugs. I do fit their profile here from there that fits neatly into their paradigm of what's real for them here, but not what's real for me here coming from there
.
The behavior changes with the territory. But can they see that? They seem to see only the negative images they were trained to see. They are simply psychological victims of their own training and culture. I am the guest again in a foreign country and have to adapt to their rules and go through their initiation. As the caseworker said, " Welcome to Amerika."

The Medical Assistant said, " See you Tuesday." This has pilgrimage tattooed in bar code on the people ironically called Americans. A misnomer in the first place attributed to C. Columbus in 1492. Conqueror's Country would be more correct. The Land of the Conquered. And you know what that means. Slave Resources, Inc in Latin. They think they're free and I'm not going tell them any different then I did in Vietnam or Singapore or China or any where else in the world who think the same thing, except for those who know better. "Sure thing dudes. Free, can I come in?"Do I want back in? Or do I really want out again before they lock me up for being what ever they decide to define me as? Will I get a choice on this menu? Time will tell…

I have seen the error of my ways, First AA Meeting. Sitting amidst others pain. I had to remind myself to stay detached. Timing. Timing. One, two, …

And I get a DUII, driving under the influence while walking up to a policeman standing in front of my house. Handcuffed, manhandled, mishandled, and I spent my first night of my life in jail. Bang. Sentenced back into alchohol recovery again.

Karma is attententive. If someone is bulding a spaceship, I want to go.

Chapter Ten
Pilgrimage Number Zero

This is it. An American in Saudi Arabia.Converted to the Brotherhood in’87 to marry a Sister in ’88. She could have been Ben Laden’s sister. In 2001 or 1422, another one of those perceptual black holes, the date is irrelevant exceept to readers in 9595.

The Pilgrimage is all about the desert and Islam. You can’t escape it if you travel. Good Christians should stay home.So should good Muslems.That leaves the Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Protestants, Hotentots, Quakers, Holy Rollers, New Age devotees and IRA free to do the same. What is is needed is religious isolationism because they can’t seem to get along. I haven’t mentioned the Jews for good reason. Because they have their own media.

Now that I have offended everyone, or perhaps not. If I failed to include a belief system, I’ll leave space for the witches and warlocks to add it in. A hundred pages or less.

What I want to get to in this pilgrimage is Zero. And start fresh.Isolationism. Everyone could keep their religions or beliefs to themselves. A secret. A novel notion for peace. Secrecy by law. Go to jail if you push your belief system . Belief police could wear white. Governments could be forbidden to push nationalism. This may be too bizarre to pursue. Like ambition.

Stardom follows close as a delusional desease.

Bollywood for Hollywood.

Chapter Eleven
Pilgrimage Number Eleven
We've got a winner!

Travelling again with two children. That makes a difference. Post-generational geology of Genome rising like a waffle in the warp. Some magical carpet going in its right direction toward another orbit around the universe. Two moons in tow that has more gravity than the father without a wife and mother.

There's a word for joy, but it’s not joy. It's called love.

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Lost Cause Lost Opportunity

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Thayne Madrid

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What’s in a name?

Case Histories:

Singapore Airline’s Introduction of Boeing’s stretched 747- Big Top

The problem was how to differentiate Singapore Airline’s newly acquired first Boeing stretched 747 from all the other stretched 747s that would eventually be delivered to other airlines in keeping with SIA’s brand strategy and creating a perceived competitive advantage for SIA by owning the new 747.

We wanted to give it a personality. We went from, “more room at the top to a top with more room,” clumsy at best. And although this naming exercise is a fuzzy-one to claim any ownership to, being a group effort, during the brainstorming session in the conference room of Batey Ads on High street in Singapore, I recall having said, “It looks Big.” And the rest became history. So goes the creative process at times.

National Iron and Steel Mills- Natsteel

National Iron and Steel Mills of Singapore was facing increasing competition in its export markets and felt that its image was lacking a modern competitive advantage compared to its competitors like Japan Steel. We agreed that the company’s name hinted at the ‘Iron Age’ and proceeded to develop a new name and a new look for the company more in sync with the times.

I believe strongly in brand and name equities when developing new names, if only to lessen the adverse reaction of loyal stakeholders to change, so we kept the Nat in National, and in keeping with international common practices at the time, kept steel as the industry identifier. Hence, Natsteel was born. It was well received and served the company in changing its current customers’ and potential future customers’ perceptions and presented Natsteel as being a modern and contemporary manufacturer and provider of steel ‘out of the Iron Age.’

http://www.natsteel.com.sg/

Royal Foods-Mother’s Milk, and Thirty Plus

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice.

Royal Foods of Taiwan wanted to broaden its product line building on its basic powdered infant formula and to develop a new health food body building powdered drink for men. Research showed that there was a market for such a product amongst men. Interestingly, the research also showed that women, who out numbered the men, were concerned with their skin. Research also showed that in terms of the perception of quality, Western products were perceived as being superior. Further. a common custom of beauty treatments using a “milk bath” for smoother skin was popular amongst Taiwanese women.

The other interesting element of Royal Food’s research showed an erosion of Royal Food’s primary brand by Western brands such as Nestlé’s, Baby Milk.

Taking the challenges as a whole we decided to rename and re-package the basic brand; Give it a more western and modern look using photography and not graphics as the competition was using. (Primarily because of legal packaging limitations prohibiting illustrations or photographs of infants on the labels of infant powdered milk products in Taiwan.)

Researching the packaging laws we discovered that we could use “parts” of children, such as a “hand” for instance.

Further research revealed the concern of Taiwanese mothers that formula milk was not as good as a mother’s milk.

Conclusion:

We took a creative risk and renamed the infant formula, Mother’s Milk, hopefully overcoming the negative image that formula milk was not as good as a mother’s milk. The package design showed an emotive picture of a child’s hand lovingly holding his mother’s hand.

The new health drink became 30+, positioned as a health drink supplement for smoother skin for women from a reputable baby formula brand manufacturer. Research also showed that if a Taiwanese woman is 25, she is worried about being thirty and if she is over forty she would rather be thirty, and that her skin quality is one of her major beauty concerns. The package design showed a photograph of an attractive fair skinned Caucasian woman.

Unfortunately, Royal Foods after paying incredibly substantial fees for the creative development never followed through with program.

House of Tea Tang- The 1872 Clipper Tea Company

A success story.

House of Tea Tang was owned by an old established Sri Lankan Singapore family and based in Sri Lanka. House of Tea Tang primarily dealt in premium bulk tea sold to established Tea brands such as Twinnings and marketed a few local packaged brands.

This was discovered during a brand portfolio audit of the BP de Silva Group in Singapore.

The international market for tea was huge, comprising over a 2 billion dollar annual market a decade ago. The market for a premium tea with a high value brand added mark up was equally as huge.

The proposition to the BP de Silva Group was to create and develop their own line of premium branded teas and to market it initially through their already established marketing channels to establish the new brand.

The opportunity: Access to a lucrative global market with existing resources.

The problem: A new brand in an old, competitive, well established market.

The solution: A new, old looking brand (perhaps something you missed) calling upon the history of tea.

The answer: The 1872 Clipper Tea Company with packaging nostalgic of old English tea packaging.

http://www.clippertea.com.sg/

Malaysia Tin Company-Pacific Can

Same old story, an old name in a new world.

Malaysia Tin Company was in the business of making tin containers. Their name sounded more like a mining company. Nothing stays the same without change, and a newly appointed CEO wanted to make changes. Change always creates opportunities for branding.

He wanted a new company to take public and we helped him do that successfully.

We decided to rename the company and give it a new Corporate Identity System.

The rational for the new name was to identify the location of the company and to communicate what it did in a contemporary visual manner and tone of voice.

The symbol was an abstracted sheet of tin that had had tin lids punched out of it and we printed it in silver foil on the letterhead and using similar silver signage and developing a corporate palette of silver, white and blue.

The new name was Pacific Can.

Sony- Walkman vs. Sound About

We lost this bout with Morita-san, the then president of Sony in Japan.

Morita-san had nursed a pet project and passion to develop a mobile music cassette tape player that he could listen to during his morning walks. He challenged his engineers to come up with such a device. And after a miniaturizing nightmare of tape technology… they did.

Pleased with his new toy, he brought it to Dentsu Tokyo to be christened and promoted.
I was one of the copywriters on the international team handed the challenge of naming the new product. It was a first. Taped music you could take with you anywhere. Your own portable personal sound system! A real WOW!

Hundreds of names were generated. One was chosen by the Dentsu creative review board. Mine!

The name was, Sound About.

The presentation was made at Sony Headquarters on a Wednesday at 3:00 pm in the Sony technological wonderland boardroom.

All alternatives were presented along with our final recommendation.

Morita-san listened politely and was silent at the end of our presentation.

The silence was awesome.

Then with a smile and rising he said, “I like to walk listening to music. We will call it, Walkman. “

The meeting was over.

( We all thought it was Japlish. We were wrong. English is always evolving. Along with i-phone and i-pod)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman#History_and_design

Jenny’s Boutique- Arrogance Boutique

Jenny, a women’s clothing boutique owner, came to me and wanted to rejuvenate her boutique. She said it should have attitude with a capitol A. I took her literally.

The new name: Arrogance Boutique.
The symbol: A large Scarlet letter A.
A
Thank you N. H.

Mytown.net -a new local concierge service as a value added product/service for an energy provider.

This evolved out of a corporate environment where I was the author of the Advertising and Branding Strategy Paper and had generated new names for the service, unfortunately the paper is a proprietary company document and I cannot share it. Ultimately it was boring but effective in creating the new service.

Headlines:

A couple of all Time Favorites:

Who says Macintosh isn’t speaking to IBM? - Headline for introducing a new Mac-IBM interface product.

Unnatural Size. Natural Colour. -Headline for Sony’s introduction of the largest big screen color television in Europe. (Clio)

Heavy. -Headline for Sony’s lightweight headphones.

Tag lines:

I don’t know who wrote, Sony the One and Only, Only, I wish I had.

Regards,

Thayne
(So what have I done lately?) To be continued…